Telecommunications systems include a telephone network and telephone subscriber units. The following patents disclose telephone networks or telephone subscriber units that incorporate text-to-speech synthesizers for generating audible caller information from textual data.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,796,806 discloses an advanced intelligent network (AIN) that incorporates text-to-speech technology for presenting spoken caller information to subscribers. In this network, caller ID information, such as the caller's name and number, ordinarily presented visually to a subscriber using a special display device, is synthesized to voice information that is audibly presented to the subscriber. The textual caller information provided to the text-to-speech synthesizer is stored in phonebook-like databases. A problem not addressed by this patent is the format mismatch between the caller information databases and the input strings to the text-to-speech synthesizer. The phonebook like textual databases are not optimized for use as text-to-speech input. Generally, caller information in these databases is abbreviated and truncated into a compact format to reduce storage requirements. Consequently, providing compacted caller information directly to a text-to-speech synthesizer can compromise the quality of the audible output. Hence, in a network there is a need for a spoken caller identification system that improves audible output by accounting for the formatting differences between caller databases and commercially available text-to-speech synthesizers.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,646,979, invented by Kunth, discloses a cordless telephone including a base unit, having a caller identification unit and a speech synthesizer, and a handset, having a speaker. The caller identification unit detects the presence of caller information, including a caller's telephone number, in an incoming telephone call while the telephone is ringing. The speech synthesizer converts the caller's telephone number to a synthesized speech signal and transmits the synthesized speech signal to the speaker. The speaker converts the synthesized speech signal into an audible voice announcement of the calling party's telephone number in real time during the reception of the telephone call. However, this patent does not disclose text to speech conversion of a calling party's name for voice announcement of the calling party's name during the reception of the telephone call. Therefore, if the party, receiving and incoming telephone call and hearing the audible voice announcement of the calling party's telephone number, does not recognize the calling party's telephone number, then the audible voice announcement offers little useful information to the receiving party.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,526,406, invented by Luneau, discloses a calling party announcement apparatus detects an incoming caller line identification (ICLID) number in an incoming telephone call while a telephone is ringing. A database contains names associated with various ICLID numbers or a group of ICLID numbers to be compared to the detected ICLID number. If the ICLID number is not provided by the telephone company, is marked as unlisted, or is from outside the calling area, then an announcement circuit announces “unidentified caller,” “private caller,” or “out of area,” respectively. If the comparison yields no matches, then the announcement circuit announces the detected ICLID number, which is typically the caller's telephone number. If the comparison yields a match, then the announcement circuit announces the name corresponding to the detected ICLID number. The announcement circuit makes the announcement over a telephone receiver after the called party has answered the telephone, but before the telephone company answers the call. Then, the called party can elect to accept or reject the call before the telephone company central office has connected the two parties together. However, this patent does not disclose a calling party's name being sent by the telephone company to be converted into speech during the reception of the telephone call. Therefore, as this patent discloses, if the detected ILCID number does not match one of the ILCID number, having a corresponding name, in the database, then no name is announced. Further, creating the personal database requires a fair amount of work to enter and maintain the numbers and names, which is typically undesirable.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,899,358, invented by Blakley, discloses a telephone network having a call announcement arrangement that obtains a calling party's name from a database search and uses a text-to-speech unit to generate speech signals for transmission to a called communication station. The calling party's name is spoken at the station instead of being displayed. For a conventional analog station, the name is spoken after the called party has answered in response to ringing at the station but before a connection is completed to the caller. The called party accepts the caller either by remaining off-hook or by transmitting a connection signal using, for example, flash or tone signaling. For other illustrative station equipment such as an ISDN speakerphone or a specially adapted analog speakerphone, the calling party name is spoken before the called party answers in place of or in addition to normal ringing. Caller-identifying speech signals are also transmitted to a station determined to be busy to announce the caller name for a call waiting call. However, this patent does not disclose text-to-speech conversion of a calling party's name by equipment associated with the called communication station. Therefore, the called party is dependent upon the telephone network to provide the voice announcement of the calling party's name.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,289,530, invented by Reese, discloses a telephone system for remotely obtaining from a selected local telephone station audible synthesized speech representative of directory telephone numbers and/or names of previous callers stored digitally or alphanumerically in a data memory of a Caller identification (ID) interface unit at the local telephone station. The stored directory telephone numbers and/or names were previously sent to the local telephone station from terminating central office Stored Program Controlled Switching (SPCS) equipment responsive to the telephone line of the local telephone station having Caller ID service and/or other Custom Local Area Signaling System (CLASS) services which discloses a calling party directory telephone number and/or name to a called party. An apparatus, such as a telephone station set or a separate stand-alone unit connected to the telephone station set, and method are also disclosed for recalling the stored directory telephone numbers and/or names from the data memory of the Caller ID interface unit and converting the directory telephone numbers and/or names into a form which can be processed by a speech generator, for receiving the directory telephone numbers and/or names to the speech generator which converts logic signals of the directory telephone numbers and/or names into sounds to audible synthesized speech, and for communicating the audible speech to a calling customer at a remote telephone station, in response to a predetermined command code keyed-in on the remote telephone station keypad by the calling customer. However, this patent does not disclose that the speech processor converts the logic signals of the directory telephone numbers and/or names to audible synthesized speech in real time during the reception of the telephone call for listening to by the called party near the local telephone station. Therefore, the called party can only receive the audible synthesized speech of the directory telephone numbers and/or names from a remote telephone station after the incoming call was been detected and stored.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,894,861, invented by Fujioka, discloses a communication network that sends an originating party's telephone number to a terminal of a terminating party when setting up an incoming call to the terminal. The terminal detects the originating party's telephone number. The terminal pre-registers a plurality of telephone numbers from whom incoming calls are anticipated and ID information corresponding to each of the telephone number. When the detected party's telephone number matches with one of the registered telephone numbers when the incoming call is generated, a speech generator provides an audible indication of the ED information corresponding to the matched registered telephone number. However, as with U.S. Pat. No. 5,526,406 described hereinabove, this patent does not disclose a calling party's name being sent by the telephone company to be converted into speech during the reception of the telephone call. Therefore, as this patent discloses, if the detected telephone number does not match one of the pre-registered telephone numbers, having corresponding ID information, in the database, then no ID information is announced. Further, creating the personal database requires a fair amount of work to enter and maintain the numbers and names, which is typically undesirable.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,883,942, invented by Lim et al., discloses: “A caller-ID device and/or an integrated caller-ID and answering machine device which is configurable 1) to play a pre-recorded announcement for the user when the caller-ID information received over the PSTN corresponds to stored information indicating an important caller; 2) to play a pre-recorded “block-the-blocker” outgoing message for the caller when a blocked-caller-ID code is received; and/or 3) to play a pre-recorded “reject call” outgoing message for the caller when the caller-ID information corresponds to stored information indicated an undesirable caller. The caller-ID information includes the caller's name, the caller's phone number, and the date of the call and the time of the call. However, this patent does not disclose text to speech conversion of a calling party's name and/or phone number for voice announcement of the calling party's name and/or phone number in real time during the reception of the telephone call. Therefore, the called party must pay special attention to look at the caller-ID information displayed on the caller-ID device to see who is making the incoming call.
Further, a problem not addressed in all of the above patents is the format mismatch between caller ID information displayed on a caller ID subscriber unit and desirable input signals for a text-to-speech synthesizer. The phonebook like textual display of caller ID information is not optimized for use as text-to-speech input. Generally, the caller ID information displayed is abbreviated and truncated into a compact format because to reduce storage requirements in the telephone network and in the caller ID subscriber unit and to reduce the display size in the caller ID subscriber device. Further, sometimes the caller ID information displays a calling party's name adjacent to a calling party's telephone number on a single display line in a compact format. Consequently, providing compacted displayed caller ID information directly to a text-to-speech synthesizer can compromise the quality of the audible output or produce unintended pronunciations.
An advantage to performing the text-to-speech synthesis primarily in the telephone network is that the telephone network is better equipped, in terms of memory and processing power and the like, to perform the complex and computationally intensive calculations associated with text-to-speech synthesis. Hence, in this case, the telephone subscriber units can be made simpler and less expensive. However, when the entire text-to-speech synthesis process occurs in the network, then a voice channel, as opposed to a data channel, typically is opened between the telephone network and the telephone subscriber unit in order to transmit the speech from the telephone network to the telephone subscriber unit. Opening a voice channel presents particular problems when trying to implement particular customer service solutions, such as talking caller identification, for example, when a voice channel is typically not opened until a telephone call is answered by the telephone subscriber unit.
An advantage to performing the text-to-speech synthesis primarily in the telephone subscriber unit is that a voice channel is typically not opened. In this case, the text forming data is sent over a data channel between the telephone network and the telephone subscriber unit. However, when the entire text-to-speech synthesis process occurs in the telephone subscriber unit, the telephone subscriber unit (or an adjunct subscriber device attached to the telephone subscriber unit) performs the complex and computationally intensive calculations associated with text-to-speech synthesis. Hence, the telephone subscriber unit becomes more complex and more expensive.
Accordingly, there is a need for a telecommunications system that performs text-to-speech synthesis in such a manner to obtain the advantage of a simpler and less expensive telephone subscriber unit, associated with performing the text-to-speech synthesis in the telephone network, in combination with the advantage of opening a data channel between the telephone network and the telephone subscriber unit, associated with performing the text-to-speech synthesis in the telephone subscriber unit.